Faybound - Evolving Core Card Play

In the last update, we talked through some of the problems with the original main combat loop. In this devlog, we'll dive into the approach and evolution of the combat flow.

Constraints

The original iteration came out of a very quick brainstorm. There is not time during a game jam to significantly pivot, but now there is time to reflect. To start, we need to identify what is locked, what is important, and what is changeable.

Fundamentally, the core combat is a card game. You have a set number of creatures selected in advance, and some of your cards are linked to an individual creature. The combat needs to be generally symmetrical, as part of the promise of having all these creatures is that you can have them on your side. Deviating too far from any of that would probably be a different game.

The card system, turn flow, and resource systems are all very malleable. That really leaves a near endless range of possibilities.

Approach

A good starting point might be to estimate how many cards we want to be played over the course of a fight. With the previous system, 15-20 card plays felt like a reasonable length of match given the card complexity. If we assume that we keep teams at three, that would mean an average of 5 cards per knockout. With some cards being defense focused and status effects, maybe only 3-4 attack cards. So if you can play 3-4 cards without interruption, you could potentially knockout an opponent. That might sound fine, but it's a lot less fun on the receiving end. That rules out something like Hearthstone, where you have free rein to play out your whole turn before the opponent acts.

Games like Magic and Runeterra solve this by generally having players trade opportunities for card plays, with a complex series of phases and states that define when certain cards can be played. Those both represent a rather steep learning curve, but trading opportunities to play cards does sound like the way to go.

I tried a naive approach and made a simple system where each turn you draw a card and gain some resources, and can play one card. This ends up feeling very mushy, for lack of a better word. You are constantly getting new cards that you have to evaluate, and it makes things like status effects messier to track. Without a hand reset, your hand clogs with junk. The game feels better when you have a broader turn structure where you can plan out card plays.

After a few more iterations, the game has landed on this structure.

1. At the start of the round, each player draws up to their max hand size and gain a few resources.
2. Each player takes alternating turns:
   1. Normally that means playing one card (some cards can let you play again).
   2. The player can also pass.
3. Once both players pass, the round ends.
4. Each player discards their hand. Each discarded card becomes a bonus resource for the next round.

That doesn't sound earth shattering, but it flows quickly and has some interesting decision points built in. You can choose to pass to see what your opponent will do. Because the extra cards turn into extra resources next round, you may not want to play everything in your hand so your next round is better. If you didn't have enough resources to play all your cards, or you drew some cards that aren't useful now, it's okay because those cards don't just go to waste.

Counterplay

Back and forth trading blows does not make an interesting game on its own, however. The choices that your opponent makes should make your choices more interesting. To meaningfully respond to an event, there needs to be an opportunity to mitigate it. There is one idea that makes this design sing, which the round breakdown didn't include.

When you play a big effect, it doesn't resolve immediately. It resolves at the start of your next turn. That means your opponent has a turn to respond, and potentially pre-empt that effect. If your opponent comes in with a big attack, you can stun the attacker and cancel the attack. You could heal up, armor up, or do something to dodge the attack. You could let it happen and focus on getting a different key target down with quicker attacks. You could pass and hope for a better next round.

Demo

I've uploaded a simple combat demo version of the game. It strips out the story and basically just dumps you into a fight with everything unlocked if you're interested in seeing how this works in practice. There are definitely some polish issues (Some of the status effects don't really work/make sense), but it demonstrates the idea. 

Future

These systems might change over time and there are some details to work through, but this solves a lot of problems at once, and feels fairly good. This now feels like a very solid base to build on.

The next major work to be done on Faybound is to try out additional systems to lay on top.  I have some ideas for card keywords and mechanisms that could add additional vectors of depth to the card play. It would be good to lay out common mechanisms before working on expanding the cards and creatures. More exciting things to come!